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Is this a defense of the CIA? The first half of the article catalogs decades of failures ranging from comical to catastrophic. "There was a time when the C.I.A
by caseysoftware 1y ago
Is this a defense of the CIA? The first half of the article catalogs decades of failures ranging from comical to catastrophic.
"There was a time when the C.I.A.’s existential fear was of losing its adversary. In Al Qaeda, it found a new one; in Iraq, it created others. In Trump, it faces an adversary of a different kind."
Further, calling the Commander in Chief its "adversary" is terrible framing.. if they're working against the elected leadership of the US, who are they working FOR?
- kevingadd 1y ago> if they're working against the elected leadership of the US, who are they working FOR? Unironically: Either themselves, or the American people.
- didibus 1y agoAll institutions are supposed to work for the people no? And kind of supposed to have some amount of independence for check and balances? To make sure none of them stop working for the people? That's what I always thought.
- throwaway290 1y agoThere's the "at the pleasure of the president" kind of thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_pleasure_of_the_president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_pleasure_of_the_preside... These jobs are pretty big ones like CISA chief but it doesn't matter much how well you serve the people or whatever. It just matters how well you serve the president
- freejazz 1y agoI find it incredibly weird that people stroll into a conversation like this, basically flexing the complete lack of civic knowledge they have.
- throwaway290 1y agoI think it was sarcasm:)
- markus_zhang 1y agoIt depends on the definition of "people" I guess.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- goatlover 1y agoHopefully the rule of law and democracy since the current POTUS is undermining those. Which is kind of ironic, given it's the CIA.
- marknutter 1y ago> Hopefully the rule of law and democracy since the current POTUS is undermining those The current POTUS is doing neither of those things.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- goatlover 1y agoSending in troops to LA over the objections of the mayor and governor, masked ICE agents kidnapping people off the street without identifying themselves, people sent to El Salvador prison without due process in violation of a Federal judge's orders, Congress does his every bidding, conservative majority on SCOTUS continues to cede him executive power, sues newspapers and universities he doesn't like, threatens to arrest political opponents, lies about the Epstein files being a hoax. What more evidence do you need? He's consolidating power like Putin and Orban did.
- naabb 1y ago[flagged]
- amluto 1y ago> if they're working against the elected leadership of the US, who are they working FOR? The various executive branch departments were created by Congress and are supposed to follow the instructions given by Congress. Various theorists disagree as to the extent to which the President is permitted to override the instructions from Congress.
- cardamomo 1y agoIt hardly matters what various theorists think while 6 justices on the Supreme Court are dedicated to giving the President as much power to override Congress as he pleases.
- caseysoftware 1y agoWhich cases do you mean specifically?
- cardamomo 1y agoI think immibis's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44639370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44639370) has a couple great examples of what I'm talking about. To add on, the Court has also allowed the executive branch to essentially shutter federal departments that were created by Congress, such as the Department of Education. They also ruled that lower federal courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions to stop executive action, thereby ending a check on presidential power that has vexed both parties when in office.
- caseysoftware 1y ago> To add on, the Court has also allowed the executive branch to essentially shutter federal departments that were created by Congress, such as the Department of Education. The Dept of Ed had ~4200 employees and they laid of ~1400. It is not "essentially shuttered" currently regardless of the goal. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ed... The important question is: "Can they fulfill their legally mandated obligations with the smaller staff?" If the answer is "yes" then we saved money and still did the job. If the answer is "no" then we have a problem. So far I haven't seen anyone identify "here are the legally mandated obligations that won't be fulfilled any longer" which would be useful and could be compelling.
- markus_zhang 1y agoIMO CIA is probably a state within a state with its own agenda and does not get enough oversight. Oversight is a two edged sword. In one side of the argument, too much oversight effectively slows everything down and makes keeping secrets much hardet. On the other side, without enough oversight the intelligence agency simply has its own agenda, depending on who really control its financing. Judging from the history of the Cold War era, it is impossible to give enough oversight when you want to fight a cunning enemy. I bet it is the same on the Russian side.
- redeeman 1y agoyes, such as when schumer warned trump that "the intelligence community has six ways from sunday to get back at you" on television. Regardless of what one thinks of trump, this should be enough to have serious consequences for the CIA and other three letter agencies
- audinobs 1y agoExactly. It seems obvious the CIA works for itself. I would think this is true of any intelligence agency. There is just too much power involved to not form an internal cabal. Financing is a trivial hurdle for the cabal to overcome once formed.
- karaterobot 1y agoI didn't find it to be defending the CIA's failures in any way. The CIA didn't call Trump its adversary, the reviewer of the book did. They also said that Trump was the Agency's adversary, not the other way around. It is also possible to be adversarial against an individual while doing a good job working for them (see for example everyone with a boss they don't like). I wouldn't read too much about the intentions of the intelligence community into that provocative sentence by an unaffiliated book reviewer.
- smsm42 1y ago> Further, calling the Commander in Chief its "adversary" is terrible framing Terrible, but not an unusual one. There has been a lot of talk about CIA feuding with various presidents, starting from JFK at least. And it's not exactly a secret they do this: > New Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia’s cyber activities. > “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. And man was Schumer right about that. > who are they working FOR? The same all large bureaucracies work for - itself. Self-preservation and self-expansion.
- deanCommie 1y agoThe president is not the state. That's been established multiple times in cases like Nixon, and unfortunately recently regressed with the Trump SCOTUS decision. But in theory all these organizations swear an oath to the constitution, not to any branch of government, and especially not their leadership. If any of the leadership issues illegal orders or does work to undermine the constitution or the country, according to the oath sworn by CIA agents, they should be doing everything they can to work against this leadership. Even the military expects soldiers to reject illegal orders to commit gencode.
- cryptonector 1y agoThe peak of the "the president is not the state" was when the SCOTUS approved of the special counsel law in the 80s. After the Clinton fiasco the SCOTUS has pretty much adopted Scalia's dissent in that case.
- evilduck 1y agoOstensibly the CIA continues to exist through your elected congressional leadership as an agency created by the National Security Act of 1947. Voters don't have to vote consistently and can choose to have one branch of government ideologically at odds with the others. This would be the CIA working for the people but without it being aligned with the President. If Congress decided to end the CIA then they could pass a law abolishing the agency or pass laws that refine the things they can or cannot do, but they're not inherently beholden to the President. The legislative branch being at odds with an executive branch representative isn't inherently problematic unless you think the President should be king.
- cryptonector 1y ago> This would be the CIA working for the people but without it being aligned with the President. If the POTUS feels the CIA is not obeying legal orders then he can roll heads till they do.
- HaZeust 1y ago>"The legislative branch being at odds with an executive branch representative isn't inherently problematic unless you think the President should be king." There's another lens: You could think this, and have it rooted in the belief that separation of powers and the "checks and balances" against political institutions should have expanded beyond 'Executive' <-> 'Legislative' <-> 'Judiciary'.
- cryptonector 1y agoThere are more than three institutions and checks and balances between them. There's also: a) the States as a foil to the Federal government (and vice-versa), and b) the jury.
- HaZeust 1y agoJury is really the ontologically-vested check and balance that “The People” receive, the rest are implied through negative rights (right to guns BECAUSE congress can’t infringe, right to speech BECAUSE congress cant abridge) Jury is a positive right within the right of due process - AND the right of citizens to participate in - and is therefore treated as a compelled responsibility on members of the populace, that exists to quell concentrated power from legal proceedings. In my opinion, we should have had more of those - and “The People” should have been an enumerated institution within the political structure that offers more comprehensive positive rights, negative rights, and compelled (and tensioned) checks and balances against the other institutions (executive, legislative, judiciary, “state”)
- erikerikson 1y agoThe country and the people it exists to serve.
- h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 1y agoThey are working for their own black budget above all else. Legality doesn't matter as long as the money keeps flowing.
- LatteLazy 1y agoIsn't the point of the previous examples that every organisation ultimately works for its own survival/growth? The cia was basically pointless when the ussr fell (I'm not sure I agree but that's the logic). It needed a reason to exist and Al Qaeda provided that. When that wore thin, it manufactured its own reason in Iraq, a country that had no wdm and was no threat. And so on. I'm not saying I agree but that is the logic I believe